Smell

Memories of you
live in a lake
behind my eyes, and
every now and then
I trawl through it and collect
dead hurt;
pile it like rotting fish
on the bank, so that
the scent of
your giddy happiness
the night we kissed on your
apartment floor,
might lose its way before
it reaches my nose.

But every now and then, on nights like these,
when the moon waxes eloquent,
the waters of the lake run high;
drown.

I pour liquid nitrogen hate
into this water, and my heart
pumps cooler, number.

I present you frozen words
wrapped in barbed wire, and
out of fear, refuse
to greet your reverse-Medusa eyes
they could turn me from stone 
into 
human.

You see,
you are not good for me.
You hold the trigger to my
insanity, and I
had hoped that time and
ice
would loosen your grip
and yet
here I am 
devoid of maturity, goodness, sanity.

So I will be continue being cold,
and give your burgeoning hatred
ammunition.
You should know though,
that this barbed wire
hurts me more than you.

...

"Why can't you be normal? Why can't we be friends?"
Would you give an alcoholic a glass of wine,
to sniff only?